<p>My son was accepted to NEU yesterday as a Finance major with a $16K per year scholarship. However, he was not offered admission to the Honors Program. He's really at a loss to understand why since he was offered the program at all the other universities he applied to. </p>
<p>He is graduating with a 4.6 weighted GPA in the top 3% of a competitive public high school. He has taken 7 AP classes and every other class has been Honors level. Of the 3 AP exams he took so far (Chem, Bio and Psychology) he got a '5' on all. His SATs were 2200 (640R, 760M, 800W) and he has SAT II scores of 800 for both Chemistry and Math II. </p>
<p>He is a member of NHS, AP Scholar, played three sports (football, wrestling, lax), captain of the wrestling team, held a part time job for the past three years, did Leadership training camp for the past three summers. Excellent teacher and counselor LOR, and received awards the past two years for the Most Outstanding student in his high school for both Algebra II and Pre-Calculus.</p>
<p>What do you think? I can't imagine what the school uses as criteria for admission to the honors program, but maybe someone can shed some light on why he was not accepted.</p>
<p>From what I have read on this forum, it is the top 10% of accepted applicants. There were 16,000 applicants this year for EA and only a small fraction were accepted, all of them with great backgrounds. Then take 10% of these exceptional students. </p>
<p>Honors would have been great, but at least you are getting a decent scholarship that covers almost half the tuition. I saw some other great candidates in the main thread who didn’t even get that.</p>
<p>i got 20k a year but wasn’t accepted to the honors program. is it possible that they’ll admit you to it later, or that it might mention it in the letter they send out after your admitted?</p>
<p>The top 10% of admitted students by college are offered the Honors Program. The yield (% of admitted students that enrol) for the honors program is about 40% compared to Northeastern’s overall yield of 21%. Merit scholarships are offered to the top +/-25% of admitted students so it is likely that you may get a good merit scholarship but not Honors. </p>
<p>Northeastern is taking a conservative approach to admissions this year. Last year the yield rate went from 19% to 21% and the freshman class was overenroled by 300 students, combined with a rise in the freshman retention rate to 95%, created some crowding on campus. I would expect the acceptance rate will be a few points lower than last years 34%, even if it means going to the waitlist in May. The university does not want to be overenroled again for a variety of reasons.</p>
<p>I got into the honors program with a 33 on the act, 800 on Math II, and 760 on Physics, a 3.7 GPA and Im taking the full IB diploma. Our stats seem similar, and I only got $12,000 off a year so I don’t really get how they pick honors students</p>
<p>The “BY COLLEGE” part is very important. Engineering always has a huge amount of people with high grades, scores and merit aid- but no honors (for example). Now they are also officially working off of the 3 CAS colleges, so you’ve got an even more specialized group of competition.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of someone getting into honors in RD when they weren’t given it in EA. You can ask, but they will probably tell you to just apply after your first semester.</p>
<p>The honors program is overrated. I was in it. IV is nicer facility-wise, but socially, no one went out in the halls and met people and all that like they do in the normal freshman dorms. A lot of people sitting alone in the dining hall on their laptops or phones, too. Classes? Enhancing Honors is wretched and required, the rest of them aren’t bad, but it’s just another restriction on your schedule (less control over professor and class time if you have to be in the honors section).</p>
<p>Obviously, that’s just one person’s experience and I knew kids who loved the honors program. Just accept that you didn’t get in and if you still want to do it after the first semester, you can apply then.</p>
<p>Yea, it is definitely by the college, which can explain a lot of things. If you have a 3.4 after first semester and apply to get into the Honors Program, it’s very simply to get in.</p>
<p>As for experience with Honors, IV is definitely nicer, and obviously people have different experiences, but my floor always has people in the common room, as do some other floors, so know that meeting new people just by being out there and friendly is definitely possible. Enhancing Honors is annoying, but it’s just in exchange for the better housing in my opinion (plus we have a dining hall in our basement and only share our bathrooms with 3 other people, which is a nice trade off if you ask me).</p>
<p>Sorry, but wrong. They upped it to 3.8 to get in while you’re already here. It used to be 3.6 (not 3.4- which is the requirement to STAY in honors). A 3.8 gpa is pretty hard to get your first semester in college, but not impossible.</p>
<p>It IS possible to appeal the decision, but it’s not something they advertise. My father figured out the details, but basically I had to email a letter to both <a href=“mailto:honorsadmission@neu.edu”>honorsadmission@neu.edu</a> and an admission counselor from here [Admissions</a> Counselors | Admissions](<a href=“http://www.northeastern.edu/admissions/contact/counselors.html]Admissions”>http://www.northeastern.edu/admissions/contact/counselors.html). I just wrote a letter talking about my academic achievements (GPA, AP classes, etc.) and about how I had maintained straight A’s all year or something, and they ended up admitting me. I know one other person who appealed and got in as well, although she had worked with her high school guidance counselor to do this (she attended high school in Massachusetts and I guess her guidance counselor was familiar with Northeastern and its honors program).</p>
<p>That said, sometimes I think that secretly the Honors Program knew that it wasn’t fit for me and that’s why they didn’t initially admit me - I don’t really like the program. I find it to be a hassle to fit honors classes into my schedule, especially when I have to use them as my electives. I also have never really felt like I had much in common with most of the people in the honors program; I don’t know why. Everyone’s kind of an overachiever.</p>
<p>Oh and as for my stats (this is a few years ago though)
SAT 2210, GPA unweighted 3.8ish (school didn’t calculate it though) and weighted was 4.13 (+1 point for AP, +.25 for honors). Was top 5% in high school but the school didn’t report rank, so I’m not sure exactly what became known to admissions. Not too many extracurriculars.
Got 16k scholarship, which was highest at the time.</p>
<p>At the time that I had applied for admission, at the beginning of the school year, my GPA was a 4.02. It went up significantly during the school year because I had A’s in a few APs, so that could have been what changed their minds.</p>
<p>His SAT reading score is fairly low. Also, I get the impression that many colleges, including Northeastern, look more at two score (M + CR) than three score SAT (M + CR + W). As a result, the perfect writing score does not look as impressive. In addition, Northeastern does not look at subject tests, and almost every college does not look at AP scores. Despite all that was said, his stats, as well as his ECs (although I believe honors programs tend to be strictly stat-based), are still quite stellar and I believe you should appeal the decision.</p>
<p>For comparison, I have a 2180 SAT (780 CR, 750 M, 650W) and I am ranked in the top 4% of my private high school with 8 AP classes taken. I was accepted into the honors program as a computer science major, which, from what I understand, is a difficult college to get into (College of Computer and Information Science). With such similar stats, it is strange that he was not accepted into the honors program while I was.</p>